


The Many Ways to Fly a Kite

by clefairytea



Category: Moominvalley (Cartoon 2019), Mumintroll | Moomins Series - Tove Jansson
Genre: Aromantic Asexual Little My, Clefairy’s Holiday Fic Request Fest, Gen, Trans Snusmumriken | Snufkin, Weird Biology
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-03
Updated: 2019-12-03
Packaged: 2021-02-27 01:40:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21659341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clefairytea/pseuds/clefairytea
Summary: One day, something very unusual happened in Moominvalley. It was a summer morning, so hot that even the dragonflies were flying low and lazy over the river. On that day, Little My woke much later than usual, and with a terrible headache.At first, she was certain that the goose she’d been tussling with the previous day had come back and started biting her head, but there were no wet footprints on the floor, or feathers on the windowsill. She pushed her hair from her face and squinted into the mirror, but her head looked bite-less. Everything was normal, but for the throbbing pain across her forehead.Little My never got sick. When Moomintroll and Snorkmaiden were bedridden with cold, or Sniff was dribbly-nosed with allergies, or Snufkin was smothering coughs in his handkerchief, Little My remained as energetic and all-mighty and unstoppable as ever.Today, she did not feel at all mighty and unstoppable.--Little My undergoes a change.
Comments: 10
Kudos: 146





	The Many Ways to Fly a Kite

**Author's Note:**

> Minor warnings for vague sex references and the Mymble being kind of a rubbish parent.

One day, something very unusual happened in Moominvalley. It was a summer morning, so hot that even the dragonflies were flying low and lazy over the river. On that day, Little My woke much later than usual, and with a terrible headache.

At first, she was certain that the goose she’d been tussling with the previous day had come back and started biting her head, but there were no wet footprints on the floor, or feathers on the windowsill. She pushed her hair from her face and squinted into the mirror, but her head looked bite-less. Everything was normal, but for the throbbing pain across her forehead.

Little My never got sick. When Moomintroll and Snorkmaiden were bedridden with cold, or Sniff was dribbly-nosed with allergies, or Snufkin was smothering coughs in his handkerchief, Little My remained as energetic and all-mighty and unstoppable as ever.

Today, she did not feel at all mighty and unstoppable.

Instead, she felt very sore. That, in turn, made her angry and ill-tempered. And it was already 11am! She didn’t normally sleep so late! She had already missed her chance to pull her morning prank on Moomintroll, or to catch a cicada for her breakfast, or any of the other lovely things she filled her morning with.

So she went downstairs in a foul mood, and this was made even fouler by the sight waiting in the living room. Moomintroll and the others were sitting down, each of them making a kite, looking annoyingly happy without her.

“I don’t think I’m going to bother _flying_ this,” Sniff said quite proudly, holding up his kite to admire it. “I’m going to sell it, and then I’m going to use the gold to buy more materials to make more kites…”

“And then sell those to make more kites, I imagine,” Snufkin said, sticking pressed flowers to the back of his own kite. “I think I will just tie mine to my tent. Then it can fly only when it wants to. And I will tie it loosely, so it can get away if it would rather do that.”

“It’s a kite!” Sniff said. “It doesn’t want anything!”

“Well, have you ever asked?” Snufkin replied.

“What rubbish!” Sniff cried. “Fine world it would be, if we all went around talking to kites.”

All the same, he eyed the kite in his paws uneasily.

“I’m definitely flying mine. I’ll look so darling, flying a kite!” Snorkmaiden said, tying a long golden ribbon to her own kite. Suddenly she looked across at Moomintroll, eyes bright. “Moomintroll! You should borrow Pappa’s camera and we can do a photoshoot!”

“What? But then I can’t fly mine!” Moomintroll protested, and then finally caught sight of Little My, standing with her arms folded and her mood getting fouler and fouler at the foot of the stage. “Oh, Little My! We were saying, it might be fun if you tied onto one and flew with it. Want to give it a go?”

“Suppose I’d have to,” she said, scowling. “Not bothered making me one have you?”

“Well, no but…” Moomintroll said, startled. “We didn’t think you’d want one we made.”

“Half the fun is in making it,” Snufkin said.

“And the rest is flying it,” Moomintroll finished cheerfully.

“No,” Snorkmaiden said. “It’s being _seen_ flying it!”

“Selling it!” Sniff piped up.

“Now, now, dears,” Mamma said, coming in with a jug of fresh lemonade. “If it’s your kite, you can do whatever you wish with it.”

She set down the lemonade on the table and glanced up at Little My. Something in her gaze softened, like she was looking at a hurt little puppy.

“Are you quite alright, dear?”

Little My couldn’t put up pity, not with her head so sore, and her skin so hot, and even her sides aching.

“She’s upset we didn’t make her a kite,” Moomintroll said softly, as though Little My couldn't hear him.

“No I’m not! And you can all get blown away to the North Pole, for all I care!” she said, and then, flushing red “I’m going to eat jam in the cellar _alone_ today.”

With that announcement, she stormed off, only pausing to grab Mamma’s best wooden spoon. She went down into the cellar, where it was blessedly cool and quiet. She sat with a jar of blackberry jam in her lap, spooning it directly into her mouth and letting her dress and face get messy. Her head only seemed to be aching worse and worse.

She decided that a nap would help. Not wanting to be seen leaving the cellar, she found an old tea-towel that had been left behind there and wrapped it around herself, curling up on the cold floor to sleep.

When she woke, she was only hotter and more sore than ever, and her head felt very strange indeed. It felt as though there were a pair of sharp claws pulling at her forehead from the front, and the pain went across her scalp to her neck and even to her teeth.

Swearing a great deal, Little My tugged her hair out of her ponytail. Without her hair being tugged so, the pain was a bit less intense, but it was still terrible.

“Little My?” said a gentle voice. Little My looked up and saw Mamma approaching her, lantern held in hand.

“I’m not sorry for eating the jam,” Little My said immediately, standing up.

“I imagine you wouldn’t be,” Mamma said, crouching down. “It’s for eating, jam. Now whatever is the matter?”

Little My pressed her lips tight, loathe to admit to anything as weak and pathetic as a _headache_. If it were anybody else – anybody else in the entire world – she would have given them a good hard bite and sent them on their way. Yet Mamma had a way of asking what was wrong that did not make you feel small or silly for their being anything wrong, and not even Little My was immune to it.

“Head hurts,” she grumbled.

“Hm,” Mamma said, stroking a soft paw across her head. “Well, I can make you some tea and a little powder that will –“

Mamma stopped, thumb rubbing at Little My’s forehead, her brow furrowing.

“What?” Little My snapped.

“…Hm, yes. A cup of tea and a little painkiller,” Mamma said. “You enjoy the rest of the jam, I will be right back.”

Little My watched her go, feeling her forehead with her paw. It was then she felt them – two tiny bumps, one each near her temples.

Mamma went back up the stairs, thinking carefully about what she had felt when she had rubbed her paw across Little My’s forehead. Yes, a little painkiller would be handy, but it was not quite the whole story. In fact, Mamma felt she was not the right person to deal with this one at all.

She came back upstairs to the other children (although she supposed they were much too big to be called that these days) bickering in the living room. Sniff was counting out some green beans he had swapped for his kite while Snufkin, leaning in from the window, tried to tell him over and over that they were simply common green beans, and had no magical properties at all. Snorkmaiden was poring over some lovely photos of herself, trying to decide which one she liked enough to frame. Moomintroll pottered about in the kitchen, fixing up a pot of tea.

“Snorkmaiden?” Mamma said after a moment’s thought. “May I walk home with you tonight?”

Snorkmaiden blinked up at her, startled.

“Of course, Mamma! But why?”

“Well, you mentioned your brother has a telephone these days,” she said, rubbing her chin. “And I think I need to make a very important phone call.”

****

Little My’s head was still sore the next day. And the next. And the day after that. What was worse, the little bumps were getting longer and more prominent. One could see them with just a glance, and she did not like it.

The past few years had seen changes to the youngest residents Moominvalley. Moomintroll had grown in a set of claws, and had needed to spend an embarrassing few weeks wearing little plastic caps on them until he learned to retract them properly. Snorkmaiden had grown a very fine curly ruff the colour of melted butter around her neck, and developed a little curl in her tail that made most men act stupider than usual. Snufkin had went from only having hair on his head to being almost completed covered in auburn fuzz, even developing a mask of it around his nose and eyes that made him look like a raccoon. Even Sniff, the old coward, had grown a little taller, voice dropped little deeper, and had developed wispy pale Muddler-fur on his ears.

All of them had changed. All of them, that is, aside from Little My.

After all, there was no improving upon perfection.

At least, she thought not.

“You’ve been wearing your hair down a lot lately,” Moomintroll said at breakfast, squinting at her.

“Just sick of tying it every morning,” Little My said, checking her hair was laying over the bumps (longer again this morning, beginning to curve). “Mind your beeswax.”

“Oooh, I could braid it for you, if you’d like!” Snorkmaiden offered.

“No.”

“There isn’t a _boy_ , is there?” Pappa said, looking over the morning paper. Little My looked up, met his eye very seriously, and released an absolutely enormous fart.

Moomintroll gagged and left the table to eat his oatmeal by the window. Pappa only muttered ‘You could have just said no’ before returning to the sporting pages.

Mamma glanced over from the sink. She’d been washing the same cup for a very long time. That could only mean something was afoot, and Little My didn’t like anything being afoot if she wasn’t the one wearing the boot.

Before Little My could scamper off to investigate any further, there was a great boom at the door and the familiar sound of many screeching children. With the pitter-patter of many paws, the kitchen was suddenly flooded with many tiny mymbles. Snorkmaiden’s oatmeal was overturned to the floor (and joyfully rolled around in). Cutlery drawers were found, pulled open, and promptly emptied. Moomintroll was seized by the tail and dragged under the kitchen table. Pappa was likewise trapped in the corner, being prodded by many forks.

“Moominmamma, I’m here!” boomed the Mymble, followed her children in. “Now where is that delightful daughter of mine?”

“Mother!?” Little My said. The Mymble dropped the bundle of old laundry to the floor and rushed over, brushing Little My’s hair out of her face.

“Hey, get off me, I’m eating breakfast!” Little My snapped, having already kicked and slapped some of her little siblings away. The Mymble, as she tended to, paid no heed whatsoever.

“You were exactly right, Mamma! That is certainly a jolly good mymble crown growing in right there! How exciting, yes, yes!” she said, tapping the end of one of the bumps. As hard as she tried to keep her composure, Little My felt the colour leave her face.

“A what?” Moomintroll asked, crawling out from under the kitchen table, a little mymble boy bouncing on the end of his nose.

“A mymble crown!” the Mymble continued, touching her own horns. “You must be so excited, Little My! My most rambunctious child is a queen mymble, how delightful! Oh, you are going to be so very busy, but it’s all going to be terribly good fun.”

Little My, for once in her life, didn’t have anything clever to say.

“Mymble…I did ask you to be discrete about this,” Mamma said, trying to stop a couple of little children from crawling inside the oven.

“I don’t know the meaning of the word, dear. I did look up it up in dictionary, but one of my clever children had scribbled over the whole page. I assumed you meant ‘quick and decisive’, so I was!” the Mymble said, and clapped her paws together. “Now, enough vocabulary. We have much to discuss!”

“Can we please get these…children…” Snorkmaiden said, hissing the word ‘children’ as though she thought they deserved a much ruder term, “out of here first?”

“Of course, of course!” Mymble said, looking around and then upstairs. “Err…is Snufkin about?”

“You have to do it yourself, mother!” Little My snapped.

“Very well then!” the Mymble said. “Now then, my dearest Moominmamma...where do you keep your hose?”

****

After everyone got thoroughly drenched (and Mamma had muttered a frantic apology into Little My’s ear), the children had been sent to play outside, the adults could finally settle in at the kitchen table for breakfast. And for what the Mymble assured everyone was “a very important discussion”.

“I’m surprised, I have to say! Nobody else in the family has developed a crown at all,” the Mymble said. “I thought my eldest would, if anyone. I’d never have suspected you – oh, of course, no offense intended dear. You must be excited!”

“Why would I be excited?” Little My snapped, head hurting worse than ever.

“I was terribly excited when mine grew. There aren’t many queens, you know, it makes one feel very special,” she said. “Now we must think about who you will have your first litter with…”

“ _Litter!?_ ” Moomintroll spluttered.

“Yes, yes, it’s what we queens do best, after all. What we’re for, basically,” the Mymble continued. Moomintroll’s eyes widened as the penny, at very long last, dropped. Honestly - someone _really_ needed to desperately give that stupid ball of fluff a biology book.

The Mymble hummed, tapping her chin with her finger.

“Oh! I have it,” she said suddenly. “That Sniff boy! You always get along well with him –“

Snorkmaiden burst out laughing.

“ _Sniff?_ ” Little My barked.

“Well, why not? I know many creatures are particular about these things, but there’s really no need,” the Mymble said cheerfully. “It’s a very simple job, after all. Any fellow with the appropriate equipment can manage it!”

Moomintroll’s mouth hung open. Pappa continued to read the soaked paper, despite the fact most of the newsprint had long ago bled onto his fur and it was increasingly begin to resemble a crumpled paper ball.

“You don’t know Sniff if you think he can’t duff up a simple job, then,” Little My said, mostly because the silence had went on much too long.

“Well, dear, you don’t have many options. Most chaps in Moominvalley are too old for you,” she said thoughtfully, and then glanced at Moomintroll. He looked behind him, as though hoping some other chap were about to take his place. “Now, moomins are wonderful lovers –“

“Ms _Mymble_!” cried Moominpappa, slamming down his paper with a wet splat. Mamma looked at the ceiling and whistled a tune, much too innocently for anyone’s comfort. The Mymble continued as though nobody had said a word.

“- but our dear Snufkin doesn’t even like to share butterscotch -”

Moomintroll hid his face in his paws.

“- so I rather think that Sniff boy is your best option,” she finished, dribbling honey all over her oatmeal.

If there was one thing Little My prided herself on, it was being sharp and clever and always having something witty to say.

Yet when it came to her mother, it was terribly hard to get a word in edgeways. Even now, with the Mymble humming as she chopped up a banana, Little My was too struck dumb to say much of anything at all. And everyone else was too embarrassed to stand up for her. Aside from Snorkmaiden, who was giggling too much to be any use to anyone.

“Ah, wait!” the Mymble said, clicking her fingers. “Ms Snorkmaiden! You have a brother, don’t you?”

Snorkmaiden stopped laughing.

“Mother,” Little My tried again, her mouth very dry, “I am _not_ –“

“I’m just giving suggestions, dear, don’t take it as order!”

“That –“

“This is your choice, yes, yes. Oh, and what a fun choice to be making! Haha, I remember my first, ooh, it was a lovely summer and -”

“Augh!” Little My said. She stood and hurled her whole bowl of oatmeal across the room. “I’m going out! Alone!”

She hopped from her chair and stormed out, slamming the door behind her.

“And I was just as moody!” the Mymble said gleefully. “How very nostalgic!”

****

Little My was in a bigger, badder temper than she’d been in for a very, very long time. In fact, for as long as she’d lived in Moominhouse, she’d never been in a worse mood.

She managed to find the goose she’d been scrapping with the day before and gave it a good thrashing, sending it honking and running all the way back to the river. She stomped on an antihill making sure to get muddy right up to her knees.

Luckily, a wild wolverine found her and started a fight with her as well. Yet even winning that fight didn’t make her feel better. She knew it wasn’t sporting, but she was in such a foul mood she chased the wolverine around the woods until it was whimpering and shaking all over.

“Get back here!” she shouted, as it dove through the undergrowth. For a moment she lost it, and had to put her nose to the ground to pick the trail back up.

“There you are, you cowardly little sneak,” she snarled, and charged through, bursting into a glade.

“Good morning, My,” Snufkin said, sitting cross-legged on a log, a furry bundle on his lap. “I suppose you’re what has this poor thing so terrified.”

The wolverine moved from Snufkin’s lap to cower behind him. Snufkin rested a paw on top of its head.

“Your friend-to-all-living-things thing gets _really_ old sometimes, you know that?” Little My snapped. Still, the wolverine looked so pathetic that it would be no fun to torment any more.

“I’m sure it does,” Snufkin said, and looked at the wolverine. “Now she isn’t going to chase you any more, so be off. A ferocious predator like you has no business hiding behind me.”

The wolverine scampered off, whining. Little My, for just a second, expected Snufkin to ask why she was in such a bad mood, but then she remembered who she was dealing with. Without even a second glance at her, he pulled out a lump of wood and a carving knife from somewhere within his many pockets and started chipping at it.

Spitting out a bit of blood, Little My trotted up to him and held out her paw.

“I need your knife.”

“I’m using it,” he said.

“I need to use it more,” she insisted.

“Whatever for?”

“Cutting off _these_ ,” she said, and pointed at her new horns. Snufkin looked at them carefully for a moment and then went back to his carving.

“This knife isn’t sharp enough to do that.”

“Well, I need to get rid of this somehow!” she said, hopping onto the log beside him.

“There are always ways and means for that kind of thing,” he said, and patted his chest. “If you’d really like to get rid of them, that is.”

Little My huffed, not sure what to say to that.

The two sat in quiet for a bit, with only the sound of Snufkin’s carving knife.

Did she _really_ want them gone? She’d not even really considered the question. She’d just been caught up in what they were supposed to _mean_ , rather than what they actually _were_.

Having horns – properly curved, pointy, devilish horns –did make sense for her, after all. She would cast an even more frightening shadow than usual with them. And there was nobody in the world more deserving of a crown than her, no matter what kind it was.

“The horns are fine,” she said finally. “I suit horns. I suit _everything_.”

“That you do,” Snufkin agreed.

“It’s just what people – well, mother _expects_ out of the crown I disagree with,” she replied, poking at the ground with a stick.

“Really?” he asked. “I always thought you’d rather like your own kingdom. You do like being in charge.”

“Too right I do, pal. I’m fantastic at being in charge. If I was really getting my own kingdom, that would be another thing entirely.”

“It’s long overdue,” he said. This annoyed her. He didn’t agree with kings and queens in any capacity. Besides that, saying useless fluff just to be nice didn’t suit him at all. She kicked him.

“Alright,” he amended. “I’d rather you didn’t. Royals are a waste of air and you would be an utter tyrant.”

“That’s better,” she said. “Siblings should be honest with each other, even when it’s nasty. _Especially_ when it’s nasty.”

“Then tell me what nasty thing you’re thinking,” he said.

“I’m thinking. Not in a million, billion months of Sundays, would I want _Sniff_ to give me a litter.”

The lump of wood shot out of Snufkin’s paws.

“ _Sniff_?” he squawked.

“Ha! That got your attention, didn’t it?” she said. Snufkin had nothing to say to that, he just shook his head and retrieved his carving wood. He settled back down and went back to his whittling. It took him a long time before he was read to speak again, consumed in thought about something.

“Would you want anyone else to?” he asked.

Little My considered this and wrinkled her nose.

The whole thing had always struck her as disgusting. Everyone always told her she’d grow out of it one day, but she never did. If anything, she only despised the whole thing more the older she got.

Kisses and sweet nothings made her gag. The rest of it was even worse. Oh, she knew mymbles were known for it, but it sounded sticky and sweaty and awful. And then there was what came afterwards! The little sprogs who needed to be fed and changed and clothed and doted upon. All of that dull business would leave no room for scrapping with wolves or stuffing engine pipes full of pudding or even for napping for long hours on the windowsill.

“What do _you_ think?” she said.

“I think not in a million, billion months of Sundays,” he replied. She snorted.

“Ha! At least you know.”

“You make it very clear.”

“Well that’s not enough for some people, is it!” she burst out, all the anger boiling right back up. There were few things more infuriating, Little My thought, than to be told you didn’t know yourself, and that you would do what everyone expected you to sooner or later. Especially if what you were expected to do was down to something as stupid and random as _biology_.

“I suppose we’re talking about the Mymble, aren’t we?” Snufkin said, tone uncharacteristically heavy. Little My nodded, folding her arms and kicking her feet.

“You know what our mother’s like,” he said.

“Not really,” he replied simply.

She paused.

“Yeah, well I suppose you wouldn’t. It’s just that you tell her something and it goes in one ear and out the other,” Little My said. “And don’t tell me she means well.”

“Wasn’t going to,” he said, titling his piece of wood and squinting at it. “Good intentions are over-rated, in my opinion. Hurt matters more.”

“I’m not hurt,” she lied. “It’s just a pain dealing with someone who doesn’t listen properly. That’s all.”

Especially if it may well be someone who _never_ listened properly, no matter what you did or how loud you said it or how many times.

“Well, the excellent thing is you can return the favour,” Snufkin said, cutting a small corner out of the wood. “You don’t need to listen to her a day in your life if you don’t want to.”

“I wasn’t going to,” she huffed. “It just wouldn’t kill her to hear me for once, would it?”

“No,” Snufkin said firmly, “it wouldn’t.”

They sat listening to the scratch-scratch-scratch of Snufkin’s knife.

“This is hardly the sort of thing either of us are good at,” he began slowly, sounding as though he were reading the words off from something printed very small and posted very far away, “but if you would like me to come with you when you talk to her…”

“Who says I’m going to talk to her?” Little My spat. Snufkin raised his eyebrows at her.

“So you, Little My, would let someone else get the last word?”

“Like hell.”

“Language,” he said mildly.

“Oh shut up,” she snapped. “I suppose I’ll talk to her. I hardly want you to hold my paw while I do it, though.”

“I wouldn’t dare try,” he said. “I just know that such discussions can be difficult, even for someone as formidable as you. Consider me…back-up, of a sort.”

“Back-up,” she repeated, the weight of the word pleasant on her tongue. “I think I like that. Though if I wanted _real_ back-up, I’d want someone a bit more imposing than _you_.”

“I’ve been told I’m quite intimidating,” he replied, a touch affronted. She blew a raspberry.

“Only if someone’s too stupid to realise you wear those ridiculous heels and that ugly hat to look bigger than you are.”

He shot her a scowl, always so stupidly touchy where his less-than-impressive height was concerned. Little My cackled, basking in the fierce glee of an argument with her brother hard-won.

“Well, my offer still stands,” he said briskly.

“Eh. I’ll think about,” she said, and then added in a grumble. “Thanks.”

They both avoided each other’s eye, neither particularly comfortable with sentiment.

“Hey,” Little My said finally. “Do you still have that kite?”

“Tied to my tent,” he said, gesturing vaguely in the direction of the river. “Why?”

“I’m going to try tying it to my horns instead,” she said, touching her head. “That way I could to fly it running on all fours.”

“I think,” Snufkin said, pocketing his knife and wood, “that sounds like a worthwhile experiment.”

Deciding a discussion with their mother could wait, the two ran off to retrieve the kite. There was, Little My thought with relish, many other types of fun one could have with a pair of horns, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> Lesbian!Little My and Ace-Aro!Little My both real both valid love them both very much.
> 
> The Mymble is absolutely that one relative who overshares at the dinner table and mortifies everybody else.


End file.
